‘Whacking great cuts?’ NHS set for cull of management
A BONFIRE of managers is planned as health bosses move to avert a massive funding crisis in the NHS.
It was agreed at a NHS Camden board meeting on Monday that NHS Camden’s management budget will be slashed by 30 per cent.
Senior executives insist sackings and service cuts can be kept to a minimum – but only if a “sea change in the delivery of healthcare” is implemented.
NHS Camden chief executive Dr Mark Atkinson, who is paid a £209,000 salary, said: “We will reduce management costs by 30 per cent. This will probably be introduced around 2011/12. We will need people on the ground to introduce what will be huge changes in the workforce. We are entering austere times. It is important that our key focus is around quality and efficiency savings. It is not about cuts – it is an opportunity to do something really positive.”
NHS medical director, Sir Bruce Keogh, sang from the same hymn sheet last week in a keynote speech at the Royal Free Hospital, claiming £20billion of cuts over the next three years would lead to a better quality service.
But non-executive director Professor David Taylor said he felt the NHS may be sending out “double messages”, adding: “Are these whacking great cuts, and we’re not quite saying it? It could come across as sounding like some sort of Soviet plan.”
Dr Atkinson said there was no doubt there was a “significant gap” in funding but insisted that better collaboration between neighbouring Trusts and savings from massive cuts to hospitals funding – enforced by central government – would help ease the pressure.
The grand vision for the NHS is to cut funding to hospitals by 30 per cent and move them into cheaper “community settings” such as the kind of supersize health centre planned for Euston Road. This has led to proposals to close the Whittington’s casualty department with NHS bosses claiming its admissions could be moved into health centres.
A public meeting has been called by the Defend Whittington Coalition campaign group in the Archway Methodist Church on Monday from 7pm.
Actor Rupert Graves has become the latest famous face to sign a petition calling for the Whittington’s accident and emergency to be protected. The actor was away filming, but his wife Susie said: “Rupert took our two-year-old to the accident and emergency quite recently. We were told by Camidoc and NHS Direct to go there immediately. He went to the main A&E and got seen almost straight away. It took about 10 minutes. It is our local hospital and one that serves the whole community.”
TOM FOOT